Sheng
Shen

Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering

Bio

Professor Sheng Shen is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, with a background in nanoscale engineering, thermal science, photonics and materials science. Prof. Shen’s research interests include nanoscale thermal transport and energy conversion phenomena, and their applications in solar or thermal energy conversion, thermal management, and multifunctional materials.

The energy transport properties of nanostructures can differ greatly from their bulk counterparts because the characteristic dimensions of nanostructures are often comparable with the wavelength or the mean free path of energy carriers such as photons, phonons and electrons. At the nanoscale, the properties of materials can be engineered to increase the energy density or energy conversion efficiencies. In his recent research, Prof. Shen demonstrated nanoscale thermal radiation exceeding Planck’s law by three orders of magnitude and thermal conductivity of polymer nanofibers three hundred times higher than that of bulk polymers.

Prof. Shen is a recipient of NSF CAREER Award (2013) and DARPA Young Faculty Award (2013). He also received the Philomathia Foundation Research Fellowship in Alternative Energy Research from UC-Berkeley (2010), Hewlett-Packard Best Paper Award from ASME Heat Transfer Division (2008) and Best Paper Award from Julius Springer Forum on Applied Physics (2008).

Sheng Shen, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, is working on nanoscale energy transport and nanophotonics at Carnegie Mellon University. In this video, he describes two examples of his research: thermal interface materials for advanced thermal management of microelectronics and control of thermal emission for energy applications.